The Legacy
by BeaterNightFury
Summary: Ventus is 16, he has an amazing adoptive family and a lot to learn. Terra and Aqua have responsibilities and dreams, and maybe the need to act a little more their age. Lea has a sister, Isa has a dog, Zack has a girlfriend and a buddy to help. Sora is too happy for his own good, Riku is too stubborn for his own. Along with many more, they share one story, and one legacy.
1. Patterns in the Big Sky

_**Sooo... hello there. Beater here and this is our story. Ours as in, mine and my friends', because it all came out of a big RPG we had on WhatsApp.**_

_**You may already have started reading this in AO3, yeah, it's cross-posted obviously. Of course it's still me - I can prove it, this account was made long before the AO3 one and I haven't been using it in a while. I didn't think of posting here, too, because I thought of putting my friend Miraha as a co-author and only AO3 allowed me to - or at least I think so. We're the two who did most of the writing, and I hope you will enjoy reading this four-part series as much as we loved writing it. (and translating, in my case, because the original draft was in our native language, Italian)**_

* * *

Chapter 1

Patterns in the Big Sky

"_This is my family._

_I found it all on my own._

_It's little and broken, but still good._

_Yeah, still good."_

The deafening sound of shattered glass echoed in the hall, immediately followed by the wail of a small child.

«You're in _trouble_, Terra.» The teenager who had been strenuously dueling the culprit until that very moment shrugged and dismissed his weapon with a flick of his wrist.

His name was Ventus, and even if he didn't look his age of sixteen, he was the youngest student in that castle – student, not person.

Normally Terra, his sparring partner four years his senior, would have responded to such an accusation by seizing him by the shoulders, lifting him up in the hair, and scratched accurately his golden hair with a noogie, but in that very moment, the wail of the little one had left the older boy full of concern.

«_Shiro_…» Terra hissed between his teeth, slapping his forehead with the hand he wasn't holding the Keyblade with.

In a corner of the room, fenced by a playpen, a girl little older than one with blue eyes and unusually whitish hair was clutching the colored fence and crying, while she looked for the other people in the room with her gaze. Terra ran to her and picked the toddler up immediately.

«I'm so sorry, sunshine, Dad didn't want to scare you…»

«Yeah, you just wanted to blast me into a wall.» Ventus chuckled joining his friend. «She would have started crying anyway, though, if you did it.»

Ventus just adored Shiro, along with his status of uncle in all but blood, but he hadn't always been so agreeable towards her. Despite having turned sixteen the previous fall (he had a bad case of amnesia, and the other student in the castle, Aqua, had decided his birthday to fall on November 27, the day in which he had walked through the doors of that castle for the first time), he didn't show his age neither physically, as he was rather short and thin and he still had the same childish face he had had when he had arrived there, nor mentally, and when he had discovered, almost two years before, that his classmates, his only two friends Terra and Aqua, had unwittingly had a baby, he had erroneously thought he would have been kicked out of the castle, or put aside, because of the newcomer in the Land of Departure.

He had needed several days of persuasion from Terra and Aqua, and a tiny, accidental help from baby Shiro, before Ventus understood that little or nothing would have really changed in his life.

Shiro turned her gaze on the boy and reached out to him with a tiny hand, squealing: «Unky!»

«No way, sunshine, that isn't fair!» Terra pretended to be offended, swung Shiro upside-down towards the floor, then he raised her back up, tossed her in the air and caught her, then he squeezed her in a hug. The little one giggled.

«You know, Terra, you have no reason to be jealous.» Ventus smirked. «At the end of the day, it's your shoulder she pukes on.»

Shiro stopped laughing and stared at a spot behind Terra and Ventus, then she smiled again and pointed at someone.

«Mama! Pawpaw!» she exclaimed happily.

Aqua took Shiro from Terra's arms and checked if she was fine, then she stared at the window that Terra had smashed with a badly-aimed Strike Raid.

«What happened?» she asked the boys.

«Dada BOOM!» Shiro intervened before one of the two had time to explain.

Aqua was visibly trying to throw a dirty look at Terra and Ventus, but Shiro's comment managed to get a smile out of her.

Ventus bit his lip. Shiro was hardly capable of saying about a dozen words and a sentence ("wuv ya!"), but she was perfectly capable of spilling the beans when she was asked to.

The boy could hardly imagine what Shiro would have been able to blather in the following two, maybe three or four years, that would have taken _him_ to get to his Mark of Mastery exam.

The man who had arrived along with Aqua, who had black hair and beard streaked with grey and wore an ample white cloak, stopped in front of Terra and looked in his eyes.

«You're nervous, son. Try to stay calmer.» He recommended him.

«I'm sorry, Master.» Terra hinted a bow.

The formality in his words and gestures was a mere façade: the older man whom Terra had called Master, Eraqus, was the closest person the three youths had to a father. He had raised Terra and Aqua ever since the two were barely old enough to write their names, and Ventus since an old friend, brother in arms and rival of his had left him there, stating the child had been gravely wounded both in his body and his heart.

«That was an accident…» Ventus tried to defend his friend.

«I know what it was, Ventus, don't stress out.» Master Eraqus raised a hand to calm down the youngest student. «However, I think that both for your safety and your tranquility, it's better if the three of you finish today's studies elsewhere, in the library.»

Nothing would have really put Ventus's spirits down, not even the perspective of spending the rest of the afternoon on magic theory tomes, but he knew it wouldn't have been the same for Terra, so he grinned from ear to ear to cheer his friend up and started marching for the staircase with the widest stride his short legs allowed him. Terra sighed, then forced a smile, followed Ventus and walked past him ruthlessly tousling his hair.

«Uhm, Terra?» Aqua caught up with him, with a smile halfway between embarrassed and vengeful. She passed him Shiro, who was starting to stink. «You break it, you bought it.»

Terra's face took a shade of green, but he took the toddler and carried her to the bathroom to change her diaper.

Walking towards the hallway that led to the library, Ventus had the time to notice, in the corner of his eye, that Aqua had stayed behind and stopped in front of the broken window.

Before he turned the corner, he saw her picking up some pieces of glass.

* * *

«Wait, wait! One more time, please!» Zack laid down in the sandpit and looked at his girlfriend with a pleading smile.

«All right… just one more try, though!» Aerith, thirteen years old, an innocent smile, and wearing the uniforms of one of the middle schools of the city, ordered him.

Zack kicked up his legs and stood up in a single, fluid movement.

«Heh!»

He opened his arms and grinned wide, then he plopped himself on one of the benches of the Radiant Garden playground.

«So, are the city guards treating you okay?» The girl sat next to him, her smile still on her face.

Zack nodded. Being only sixteen years old, the job he had wasn't full time yet – he was still obliged to attend the local high school – but he had been immediately become the big man on campus ever since he had started following one of the three city guard officers wearing a blue uniform.

Even the troublemakers in his class had pulled him aside and started proposing him to share the income of their "business" if he played along.

«For now the most heroic act I have been assigned was to retrieve a little boy who got lost in the city market. Angeal keeps saying I have to do stuff my size, which basically means that I get babied.»

Aerith turned serious.

«Zack, I know you won the bet, but I still have to ask you a favor. There's a boy… in my class…»

«A boy?» Zack had a start. «What… who…?»

He hoped with all his heart it wasn't bad news… Aerith was _dating him_… of course it was more _plausible_ she'd be hanging out with someone _her age_…

«He tried to get into the city guards as a trainee. Like you did.» Aerith looked down. «I think someone chased him away and ridiculed him, probably one of the Lord's guards, and now he's in low spirits.»

«There's nothing much to do when Lord Ansem's guards don't like somebody…» Zack pulled a face. «And you said he's thirteen… he might have more dreams than brains if he tried to do it now.»

Aerith smacked one of his ears.

«Zack!»

«Do you think he could make it?» Zack gave her a puzzled look.

«I don't know.» Aerith stared back at him. «But what he needs right now is a friend. A friend like _you_.»

She took one of his hands, then she smiled again.

«You say you want to become a hero. This would be what a hero would do.»

Zack grinned back, and gently squeezed his girlfriend's hands.

That _was _something he could do. Aerith's classmate wasn't the threat he had imagined. He was just… _a friend of hers_. Maybe even a friend of his, in the future, if things were about to go as…

«ZACK AND AERITH, SITTING IN A TREE, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!»

A voice shouted behind them, and Zack looked back to see a boy his age, with spiky, messy red hair, an orange sleeveless jacket, and a yellow checkered keffiyeh over a white sleeveless shirt and tan trousers, a mischievous smirk and a makeshift megaphone in his hands.

«They're sitting _under_ the tree, you dummy!» Next to him, another boy, with sky-blue hair neatly combed back, a navy blue jacket and spotless white trousers, gave his megaphone holding friend a condescending look.

Zack looked at the two for a moment, then he made a noisy snort.

«Of_ course_ it had to be you guys!» He reproached them, then he gestured to Aerith. «Cheese…» he pointed at the red-haired boy… «… and Chalk.» … and then his tidier-looking friend.

The mention of those two nicknames produced the reaction he had hoped for, and the paper megaphone boy tossed his toy to the ground, rolling up his green eyes.

«Zack, what the heck! You do know my name!»

Zack burst into laughter. «That's why it's fun!»

The boy shrugged and looked at his friend, trying to get some kind of support.

«I say, Isa, did you hear him? He insulted you, too!»

«You were just _asking_ for retribution, didn't you know?» Isa didn't even flinch.

«Who's the more foolish, the fool, or the fool who follows him?» Megaphone Boy picked up the megaphone and the grin and walked towards the bench. «Aerith, right?» He held out a hand. «Zack keeps talking about you. The fool who's following is Isa, and my name is Lea.»

«Nice to meet you.» Aerith shook Lea's hand.

«Pleasure's mine.» Lea shifted his weight from toes to heels, then he pointed at his own head. «Just to be sure… L-e-a. Got it memorized?»

«I'm quite sure she did. Along with the _abysmal_ impression.» Isa joined Lea. «It's a pleasure, anyway. I'm Isa. We're in Zack's class.»

«Yeah, sadly. They are _my_ classmates.» Zack subsided into a slouch on the bench and let his butt drag on the seat. «Never, ever, _ever_ get into science class and do lab on Lea's same table!»

«Oh, come on, that was one time!» Lea started looking rather offended. Isa looked nonchalantly at him and raised three fingers.

«Let's just say he can be rather _explosive_ when he…» Isa had started saying, but Zack didn't pay attention. In a pocket of his trousers, his cell phone had started vibrating and making beeping sounds.

«Hello?» He brought the device to his ears and pressed the answer button.

«_Zack?_» The voice of Angeal, one of the city guards' officers, echoed from the phone. «_I'm calling on behalf of Lord Ansem. He wants you to go through further training during the summer vacation._»

«Oh…» Zack mumbled. Summer vacation would have started within days. From a certain point of view, he didn't know if those news were good or bad.

«_Tomorrow after school you will immediately report to the castle. Dilan knows you're summoned, so don't worry about being kept outside._»

Zack covered his exposed ear with a hand, stood up, and took a pair of steps away.

«Fine. Tomorrow.»

«_I don't know all the details, but Lord Ansem is fully convinced it's about time you learn to use a weap…_»

A few steps away, Lea was holding up his megaphone.

«ZAAACK! DON'T HOG ALL THE BEER, YOU BIG PIGGY!» he shouted, while Aerith stood up and tried to snatch the megaphone from him.

«Are you nuts? Shut the heck up!» Zack instinctively replied, but he immediately realized that Angeal could have heard him and thought he was telling _him_ to shut his face. «Sorry, Angeal… classmate of mine. With a megaphone.»

As soon as Zack had said "Angeal", Lea stopped laughing and fighting Aerith and became white as a sheet.

«_Can you turn on the external speaker_?» Angeal asked Zack.

Zack took the phone away from his ear and pressed the speaker button.

«_Are you saying, kid, that some storeowners in this city could be selling alcohol to schoolchildren_?»

Lea staggered and stayed quiet.

It looked like Angeal had interpreted Lea's silence _exactly_ as what it was meant to be, because he spoke again.

«_Tomorrow after school, I want to see you at Lord Ansem's castle along with Zack, and I want you to tell me exactly who broke the laws_.»

* * *

There were many things of his childhood Ventus did not remember at all.

He didn't remember where he had grown up, nor the names of his parents, nor whether he had had a real family.

He did remember his name, though. He remembered he had already learned to read and write, how to hold a weapon, that he had always loved cats, and that he had heard somewhere that to see a shooting star in the sky was a bad omen – the warning of a forthcoming disaster, or a war.

To some extent, he didn't want to believe that.

In the last four years he had been taught not to believe to the first nonsense he heard – to observe, listen, think with his own mind, and to be _certain_ of something before starting to worry. It was one of the many things he was grateful for learning under Master Eraqus.

Terra and Aqua, sitting next to him, the former on the left and the latter on the right, on the stone bench on the summit near the castle, both looked rather worried as well, even if it was surely for other reasons: some days before that evening, the day that had preceded the window accident, the Master had announced them that they would have been tested for the Mark of Mastery exam. And the exam would have been tomorrow.

Even Shiro looked rather nervous: that evening, she had thrown a tantrum and refused food, and the three of them had convened that a walk would have _probably _calmed her down enough for her to accept the bottle.

Probably.

At the moment it definitely looked like a lost battle.

«Hey, Aqua…» Maybe Ventus knew how to start his speech without mentioning the old forthcoming disaster saying. «Do you ever wonder what stars are? Where light comes from?»

Aqua diverted for a moment her focus from Shiro's tantrum and looked in Ventus's eyes.

«Well, they say…»

«That every star up there is another world.» Terra intercepted the answer, taking also the chance to ruffle Ventus's hair. «The light is their hearts, and it's shining down on us like a million lanterns.»

That wasn't exactly the best piece of news, but Ventus didn't want to add more worries to his friends' pile, so he tried to get more information as casually as he could.

«What? I don't get it.» He shrugged.

«In other words, they're just like you and sunshine here, Ven.»

«What does that mean?» Ventus had a start. Terra's speech just got more and more puzzling with every word.

«You'll find out someday, I'm sure.»

«I wanna know _now_!»

«You're too young to know now!» Terra seized Ventus's shoulders with an arm and started rubbing his scalp with his knuckles.

«Quit treating me like a kid!» Ventus pretended to be offended and tried to wriggle away from his friend's grip, but he did not struggle for long. He had never said it out loud and he didn't think he had a reason to do it, but he just _loved_ the moments in which Terra and Aqua let him sit near them, hugged him, or even tickled him.

There were many things in his life Ventus did not remember at all, but if there was something his heart did not forget, it was the feeling of being _terribly alone_ for a rather long time.

Every little attention of his makeshift family reminded him that they were _there_, they loved him, and they wouldn't go away.

He was already leaning on Terra's shoulder with a yawn when Ventus heard Aqua saying: «You two would make the weirdest brothers…». The young woman was keeping her voice low, as if she knew Ventus was about to conk out.

Actually, the boy found it hard to keep his eyes open… he still heard Shiro's fussing, he felt that Terra was trying to shift his position somehow, but still Ventus felt way too sleepy to care…

«I'm scared, Terra…» Aqua was saying. «I'm afraid that tomorrow something might change us.»

«Even Shiro noticed you're nervous…» Terra was chuckling, but something in his voice gave his worry away. «It's gonna be okay…»

Ventus tried not to give in to sleep. Probably, if his question only had turned out to be a chance to get snuggled, he would have found the answers he was looking for now his seniors thought he wasn't listening.

«What if…?»

«_Shush_… tomorrow we'll be facing each other, but whatever happens, nothing will change what's between us.» Terra stopped to catch his breath. «And we're supposed to take care of this big boy here and of our amazing baby…»

«Terra… thanks… thanks for everything.»

It was in moments like that, Ventus was sure of that, that everything in the worlds was right.

Then Shiro, who during all that time had kept fussing and emitting senseless speech, started complaining louder and _crying_.

Ventus opened his eyes and sat up, ready to help if they ever came to the point it was hard to calm her down (it always came easy for him to make her laugh), but Terra was already on the job: he had taken Shiro in his arms, made her sit on his lap, and, holding her with an arm, had started stroking her head.

«_You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey, you'll never know, dear, how much I love you, so please don't take my sunshine away…_»

Terra was badly out of tune, and in some points of the song he recited the words instead of singing, but those words to Shiro were just like an incantation – the little one smiled instantly.

After a while, Ventus joined the song, at least to cover Terra's wrong notes and save his own eardrums, and before they finished Shiro had forgotten her tears and was happily clapping along.

«Oh, yeah, I almost forgot.» Aqua started looking for something in the pouch she wore under her sashes. «I made us good luck charms for tomorrow.»

She pulled out what looked like three small colorful stars, all made out of stained glass with a leather string hanging from each of them. Ventus immediately realized that they had been made out of the pieces of the window Terra had shattered a few days earlier.

Aqua passed the first one, orange, to Terra, then she put a second, vibrant green one, in Ventus's hands.

«I get one too?» the boy asked, surprised. He wasn't going to be tested for the mastery the following day, and he had expected more waiting before having his own.

«Of course. One for each of us!» Aqua held up the last one, the blue star she had kept for herself.

«Knowing you, there's also another for sunshine here, right?» Terra bounced Shiro on his knees.

Aqua smiled.

«There is, but she'll have to wait before she can have it. Let's say… until she knows what she can't put in her mouth!» She ran a hand through the little one's hair, while Shiro was trying to take the orange trinket from her father's hands.

They still hadn't forgotten what had happened the previous Christmas, that had also been Shiro's first birthday. Terra had carved a toy Keyblade for her and the first thing she had attempted to do with it was to leave a mark on the toy with her baby teeth.

«Somewhere out there, there's this tree with star-shaped fruit,» Aqua explained, looking up at the sky. «And the fruit represents an unbreakable connection. So as long as you and your friends carry good luck charms shaped like it, nothing can ever drive you apart. You'll always find your way back to each other.»

She gave the boys another glance.

«Technically… I think you're supposed to make them with sea shells… but I did the best with what I had.»

«Oy, sometimes you are such a girl!» Terra hinted at a smirk.

«Hey!» Aqua immediately replied. «What do you mean "sometimes"?»

They seemed about to discuss more about that cutting remark, but Shiro started blabbering and reaching out for the bottle, breaking the moment.

«Unky gots this.» Ventus raised his shoulders, took the bottle from Aqua and the toddler from Terra, and started giving Shiro the bottle.

When the little one, finally calm, started focusing on the milk, Ventus tried to expose another of his doubts.

«So this isn't a real good luck charm?»

It was rather sad to think about it, but the scavenged pieces from the broken window weren't exactly the best surrogate for sea shells.

«That's yet to be seen.» Aqua ran a hand through his hair, then did the same to Shiro. «But I did work a little magic on it.»

«Really? What?» Ventus grinned.

Aqua returned the smile and held her blue charm up.

«An unbreakable connection.»

Ventus wasn't able to say for how long they stayed on the summit, on the bench gazing at the stars. Shiro was the first to start yawning, and immediately after he, too, felt his eyelids getting heavy, and before he could notice how really tired he was, Terra's big hand shook his shoulder and his friend's voice told him it was bedtime.

Aqua took Shiro from his arms and Terra took his hand, and the four of them walked the mountain path that would have led them to the castle and their rooms.

Everything was silent around them, they could only here their steps and some li'l old cricket bug chirping.

The only lights in the night came from the castle windows and the stars.

They were almost at the staircase that led to the main door when Terra stopped them, still holding Ventus's hand tightly in his (Ventus was pretty dure he had made a few steps with his eyes closed during the walk back home) and heaved a sigh.

That would have been the last time the three of them would have crossed that door as apprentices. Ventus tried to imagine how many years it would have taken before his turn, if his friends would have helped him, if he would have been allowed to rush into things with more than a master in the castle, whether he had changed and how much since his former master had left him there, and if the old man would have noticed it.

It was then Terra spoke.

«You folks…» The young man murmured. «You're the most important people in my life.»

He was holding his head and shoulders low, as if he was ashamed to say it out loud.

«Tomorrow… so much is gonna change…» He looked at Aqua. «You'll be a Master for sure, you're way better than me. I'll do my best… It's our dream after all. And sooner or later it's going to happen to Ven and sunshine here. But as much as things will change… remember what I said, because that never will.»


	2. Storm Clouds

_**Fun fact about this chapter - and the story in general - is that when I say I've been writing this with my friends, I really mean that. For example, the description of the breakfast (complete with Ventus forgetting the jelly on his toast) is totally taken from a morning at a hotel before a convention.**_

_**I was Ventus.**_

_**Terra filled his tray to the brim.**_

_**The coffee was awful.**_

* * *

Chapter 2

Storm Clouds

«No! Nooo, _nooooooo_!»

Recognizing Shiro's voice, Ventus made haste towards the toddler's room.

As it was to be expected, Aqua was there, visibly ready and without a single hair out of place, and that was definitely normal.

Shiro's situation was much less plausible: she was hiding under her bedside table, barefoot and wearing nothing else but her diaper, refusing to come out and shouting her denial with that single syllable.

«You don't like your new dress, do you, bub?» Ventus stopped in the doorway just to chuckle at Shiro and her childish battle.

«And she won't come out.» Aqua sighed resignedly, then she looked at Ventus. «Well, look here who's talking.» She commented. «I don't see either your new shirt nor the bow tie or the vest. Why did you put on your usual clothes, Ven?»

«_Weeell_…» Ventus folded his arms behind his head. «You may be going through the exam, but I'll still be in the room. What if you start a fire? What if Terra breaks a window again? At least I won't get my new duds ruined. I'll get changed when you two do it to celebrate.»

«Is Terra still showering?» Aqua asked him in a calmer tone.

«Yeah, and he's a bundle of nerves. And he didn't even finish his cheese and his frittata at the breakfast table, you saw him…»

«Well, you forgot the jelly and you only noticed after a mouthful of toast and peanut butter, didn't you, Ven?»

Shiro used Aqua's distraction as the chance to slip away from the bedside table, toddle across the room and get into the hallway.

«You little rascal…» Ventus commented, then he sprinted out and ran after her.

It only took him a few steps to reach and catch the little girl, but he almost bumped into someone.

The man in front of him was definitely not a stranger: the dark coat, the stooped gait, the weathered face, sullen eyes, goatee and bald head… Ventus had not seen the man in four years, but the newcomer couldn't be anyone but Master Xehanort, the Keyblade wielder who had taken him there and left him.

«Well, look at that…» The elderly master inspected the teenager and the toddler with his yellow, piercing gaze. «Ventus. _It's been so long_…»

«Good morning to you, Master.» Ventus hinted at a bow the best way he could while carrying the diapered infant in his arms. «Shiro, do you remember what Pawpaw said about meeting people? You gotta say _hello_…»

Shiro's only answer was to hide her face against Ventus's chest.

«Come on, bub, manners. Do it for your unky.»

Shiro turned slightly her head to take a peek.

«Come on, say hello…» Ventus cued her again.

«Hello… _baldy_!»

If Ventus could have sunk in the floor, he could have done it. If he hadn't been in front of a Keyblade Master, the childish insult would have made him roar with laughter. The only thing he could do was to bite his lip and hope for someone to rescue him… he didn't like the disapproving look the old man was giving him. Assuming Xehanort had been Ventus's mentor before leaving him to Castle Departure, the boy was more than happy to have nothing to do with him anymore.

He sprinted away, got back into Shiro's room, and closed the door after himself.

«What's wrong, Ven? You look like you've seen a ghost.» Aqua asked him as soon as Ventus dropped Shiro in her crib.

«Master Xehanort's out there.» Ventus answered in a whisper. «And Shiro _made fun of Master Xehanort_.»

* * *

Some minutes later, the three youths were in the salon, all of them in their everyday garments, and Aqua had put on Shiro a kitten onesie that was one of the toddler's favorite outfits.

Terra was still pale and nervous as he stood at attention in front of the two masters, Aqua standing next to him.

Ventus was on their left, with his back against the wall, the only real audience of the test, while the two examining Masters occupied two of the three seats on the dais of the salon. The third, central throne was taken by a booster seat and Shiro, who was there because Master Eraqus had decided she would have done best away from the candidates for safety reasons.

The little one, who had been giggling and blabbering in her father's arms until a few moments before, was the only one unaware of the solemnity of the moment, and was happily playing with a small toy Keyblade with her named carved on the hilt, trying to recite with her one-year-old speaking skills the nursery rhyme of the ninety-nine monkeys jumping on the bed.

Every now and then, Master Xehanort threw her an annoyed look, and he seemed almost disgusted by the situation. Shiro eventually noticed.

«_Baldy old monkey_!» she squeaked, pointing her toy blade at him.

Ventus had to bite his lip again not to burst into laughter, and he could have sworn he heard Terra coughing.

Master Eraqus instead didn't bat an eye and looked at Terra and Aqua.

«Today you will be examined for the Mark of Mastery. Not one, but two of the Keyblade's chosen stand here as candidates, but this is neither a competition nor a battle for supremacy. Not a test of wills, but a test of heart. Both of you may prevail, or neither.»

The speech was interrupted by the unmistakable thud of wood on stone when Shiro dropped her toy. Ventus was tempted to cross the room and fetch it back for her, but stood still at his place.

« But I am sure our guest, Master Xehanort, did not travel all this way to see our youngest prospects in years fall short of the Mark.» Master Eraqus continued his speech. «I trust you are ready.»

«_Yes!_» Terra and Aqua exclaimed in unison.

The Master summoned his own Keyblade and raised his guard up.

«Then let the examination begin!»

* * *

«_Let the match begin_!»

The speaker on top of the baseball pitch at Radiant Junior High bellowed in the very moment in which Zack and his friends found themselves some seats.

Isa was still mumbling with himself with his eyed rolled up, while Aerith, who was wearing a hooded jacket with her school colors over her dress, was staring at the kids of the home team, looking for a familiar face.

«Come on Isa, here we go again. If we really want to talk about lateness, we should really mention that you kept us all waiting so you could take all the time in the world to _walk Bolt_?» Lea that morning was definitely in a bad mood, and people could see it from a mile.

«He had to go number two!» Isa immediately replied. «You kept all of us just outside the gate so you could get your sister _a balloon_!»

Lea's sister, a quiet four-year-old with slightly darker and much tidier red hair, a white sleeveless shirt and a purple skirt, and a red balloon tied to her wrist, looked at Isa and stuck out her tongue at him.

«Thanks a lot, Kairi.» Lea plopped on a seat and sighed.

«So, which one's the classmate of yours you told me about?» Zack asked Aerith as he sat next to her.

«He should be on the diamond any moment.» Aerith kept watching the team. «He's got spiky blond hair, very spiky, and his jersey is number seven.»

«Is that a girl?» Lea interrupted them, pointing at the player who was currently in the batter's box, who had long black hair under their helmet and a hint of breasts under the team jersey.

«Yeah, that's Tifa. And you really shouldn't doubt her batting skills if you care about your teeth.» Aerith pointed out.

Near them, Lea had let Kairi sit on his lap and had started explaining to her the rules of the game. Only an hour before, as they had left their home, he had shown annoyance when his grandmother had entrusted him with his little sister for the day, but judging by his behavior, Lea looked really fond of Kairi.

It was a side of the boy that Zack, only having known him at school, had never known or imagined. The same was for Isa – he had never guessed the blue-haired boy to be a dog person, and yet when he was in sight of Bolt, his White Shepherd, the teen was unrecognizable. Zack had never seen him laughing that much.

Zack had started hanging out with Lea and Isa since the day Angeal had "summoned" Lea to the castle to question him. After Lea had sworn up and down that no shop he had ever been to sold alcohol to kids, Angeal had communicated to Zack he would have left at the start of the summer vacation to be trained properly as a guard, and Zack had found himself with a promise made to Aerith he didn't know if he would have been able to keep.

Then Lea had offered his help with that, and in the following days they had seen each other in the few spare moments Zack could use for them.

They had never managed, though, to catch Cloud, the lonely eighth-grader Aerith had mentioned, an introvert youth who seemed to live alone with his widowed mother and helped her at home whenever he wasn't studying or playing baseball, so they had decided to wait for the final game of the school year so they could catch him when the match was over.

After Tifa, more kids succeeded her in the batter's box. Zack heard Aerith saying their names, one after another.

Cecil. Claire. Bart. Wedge.

Then finally.

«There he is, that's Cloud!»

A tiny player with messy blond hair was running away from the bench, constricting his yellow spikes under the helmet. He had an ugly greenish hue, and if Aerith hadn't immediately pointed him out as her classmate, Zack would have thought him to be a sixth-grader instead.

«I'm not surprised the guards have kicked him out immediately.» Zack whispered to Aerith. «I would have never said he's your age.»

Cloud was shaking a little when he positioned himself in the batter's box.

The opponent pitcher threw the ball, _strike one_. Cloud raised the bat again and waited for the second pitch, _strike two_.

At his third attempt, the boy managed to run three bases, but immediately after the umpire declared him safe, Cloud bent over on shaky legs, fell on his hands, and threw up on the base.

«Here he goes again with his nerves…» Aerith rolled her eyes. «He's got a bad case of performance anxiety.»

«I really don't envy the runners…» Lea commented.

Almost to confirm what Lea had just said, the umpire ordered a time out and ordered the staff to get there and clean up the vomit, then he put an arm around Cloud's shoulders and took him out of the diamond.

«He's not too bad as a batter, though.» Isa commented pointing at the score board, where two points had just been added for the Radiant Junior High team for the hits Cloud had earned them.

«Yeah, that was a good shot. He was shaking, got it? Hadn't he been that nervous, maybe he could have scored a home run.» Lea added.

Zack noticed that many of the players of the visiting team, the Western Woods, were laughing as they left the pitch, and asked himself whether they would have laughed that much if Cloud had barfed on the _home base_, right on their catcher, instead of on the third one.

«They're cleaning up.» Aerith pointed out. «I think it's our chance. We should go to him.»

She stood up and led them down the bleachers, until the fenced borders of the pitch. Cloud was sitting on the bench and staring at his shoes, with a paper bag laid on the bench near him. The girl who had batted first, Tifa, was not too far away, looking at him without getting too close.

Aerith tried to approach the players and catch the boy's attention, but Kairi was faster. She approached Cloud, untied the balloon from her wrist, and handed it out.

«Are you sad?» she asked him.

Cloud ignored her for a moment. Zack tried to intervene, but Lea stopped him.

«My big brother says that that was a good shot.» Kairi continued, offering Cloud the balloon one more time. «He's the big boy over there, the one with the bandana who looks like a dork.»

Cloud looked up.

«Thank… you… very much…» he answered in a rather scratchy voice.

«Yeah, _thank you very much_.» Lea sighed loudly, making Aerith giggle.

Zack decided it was time, and stepped forward, walking until he was right in front of the spiky-haired batter.

«Can I see that again?» he asked him.

«What?» Cloud stared at him, puzzled. He didn't seem to have realized who he was talking to, but then again Zack was in his civvies.

«I want to see that shot. Where no one else is watching.» Zack smirked. «Just me, you, Aerith, Kairi, and Chalk and Cheese here.»

«_The name is Lea_, you blockhead!»

Cloud looked in Zack's eyes for a moment, without a doubt asking himself where was the catch. Zack held out a hand and stayed still, without telling him anything.

A moment later, Cloud gave back Kairi her balloon, flattened his spiky hair under his helmet, picked up his bat, mitten and ball, stood up, and said: «Okay.»

«Whoa! Come on, Cloud, join the big boys now!» Lea patted his back.

Zack sprinted immediately between him and Cloud, ready to shelter the younger boy from his feisty classmate, and led to group to the main square, to finally stop in the smaller area surrounded by four flowerbeds.

He made Cloud stand in one of the corners of the area and took the ball from his hands, then he walked backwards towards the center.

«Lea and Isa will play defense, I'm the pitcher, and if the ball gets past the pines in the flowerbeds behind me, it's a home run. Ready?» Zack pulled out from one of his pockets his old mitten, and Lea and Isa put on theirs.

Cloud seemed way too focused on the ball in Zack's hands to understand it had all been planned for days.

«Okay, then hit it!» Zack threw the ball at him.

Far away from the gazes of dozen of strangers, in the deserted square, Cloud looked much more able to keep his eyes on the ball and his mind on playing.

Zack heard almost immediately the thud of the bat, and the ball shot up high, over the pine trees.

«Run, Cloud, _run_!» Aerith immediately shouted, and the kid, after a brief moment of confusion, threw his bat on the ground and ran counterclockwise to all the four corners of the inner square, raising a fist with a joyful cry once he was done.

Isa and Lea had left the center of the square, probably looking for the ball, but if it had been a real game, _Cloud would have scored_.

«Great job, spiky!» Zack ran to Cloud, removed his helmet and gave him a one-armed hug.

«Oh, yeah_, great job indeed_.»

One of the castle guards – _Lord Ansem's personal guards_ – had entered the square delimited by the greenery, pushing Lea and Isa in front of himself.

Under Zack's arm, Cloud almost seemed to go limp when he saw him. He had his eyes wide open and his head down low, almost to guard himself.

«What's the matter, Braig? No law forbids playing in the square!» Zack held up Cloud with a hand, gesturing him to stand up straight, and glared at the guard.

Only then he noticed that a lump was swelling on the royal marksman's forehead. Cloud had _scored a hit on his head_.

«No, I'm only saying it would be a _real shame_,» Braig held up Cloud's ball and smirked. «If Captain Sephiroth came to know one of his men hit a royal guard with a _nanshiki_ ball!»

Cloud broke free from Zack's grip and stepped forward.

«It wasn't him, it was me!» he almost cried out.

Braig approached him and gave him a scowl.

«Oh, so the brat came back.» He pressed a hand on Cloud's hand. «Haven't you learned your lesson, nappy boy?»

«Give that ball back. It's mine!» Cloud hissed again. «There's _my_ name on it!»

Even Isa, who normally never lost his cool, looked rather surprised in front of the younger kid's sudden courage.

«As if! I think I'm going to keep this.» Braig stuffed the ball into his pocket. «There's a _champion_'s signature on it. _Ciao_, kiddos!»

He left so quickly that he seemed to have magically disappeared.

«Cloud, I'm so sorry for your baseball.» Zack immediately said, promising himself he would have found and given him his old junior high nanshiki ball before leaving.

«He can keep that.» Cloud snorted. He looked a totally different person from the child who had thrown up on the third base.

«It was him, wasn't he?» Aerith reached them, holding Kairi's hand. «The castle guard who insulted you when you tried to talk to the city guards?»

«The idiot himself.» Now Cloud was smirking. «I made him see stars and _he freaking knows it was me_!»

He picked up the bat and the helmet, and there was a new light in his eyes.

«Oh, anyway…» Zack raised his shoulders and gave him a smile. «You _did_ talk to a city guard eventually, spiky. I… didn't introduce myself. I'm Zack, guard in training!»

* * *

Terra sat on the lowest step of the courtyard stairs and stared outside.

He had woken up nervous that morning, his heart invaded by the fear of failure, but he had never really _believed_ failure to be a possibility, not until the Master, the man who he had always considered as his own father, the man who had raised him ever since he had had all baby teeth, had looked in his eyes and told him that _no, he had not passed the Mark of Mastery_.

"_But there's always next time_," he had said. But Terra did not feel like trying again.

He felt just like someone had punched and kicked away all the enthusiasm and motivation out of him.

«Dada!»

He looked back, hearing Shiro's voice. His baby was sitting on the highest step, and giving him a mischievous, triumphal look.

The toddler stood up, then she sat on the step where she had laid her feet before, and stuck out her short legs on the lower step. She stood up again. She sat down, stuck out her feet… and then she decided it would have been faster to drag her backside from a step to another.

«What are you up to, sunshine?» Terra walked up to her. «Do you want to learn to walk down the stairs?»

Shiro nodded and mumbled a «Uhm!» that Terra was not sure whether to translate as a yes or a no.

«Do you want me to teach you?» He took her hands.

As her only answer, Shiro tried to grab his arms and made several gestures to ask for a hug.

«What's the matter?» The young man picked up the girl and held her in his arms.

Shiro looked in his eyes.

«Dada boo?»

Terra shook his head. «No, sunshine… I didn't get hurt. Dada is just a little sad, that's it.»

«Dada no sad. Dada stwong. Dada…» The toddler's face was contorted in a grimace, as if she wanted to remember a word. «Dada _hewo_.»

She seemed rather satisfied with what she had managed to say, but Terra was rather convinced that the new word had been taught to her on purpose. He only had to find out who did – he was rather inclined to believe it had been Ventus.

«The darkness is nothing to fear.»

Master Xehanort's voice emerged from the castle doorway, immediately followed by its owner.

The elderly Keyblade Master proceeded slowly, with his back slightly hunched and a gaze that seemed to pierce one's soul, and while he approached them, Terra noticed that Shiro was hiding her own face.

«And yet, how frustrating that Eraqus refutes its power. Why, you could train with him forever, and still you'd never be a Master in his eyes.» Xehanort continued.

Terra tried to soothe Shiro making her bounce in his arms, but he stayed serious.

«I don't understand, Master. What is it that I have failed to learn?»

«You are fine as you are,» Xehanort concluded, walking away. «Darkness cannot be destroyed, it can only be channeled.»

Terra started thinking of a possible answer, probably something to thank the master, but a noise came from behind him – the castle bells had just started ringing.

He did not know what it could mean, not that time, but he had been taught it was for important news, if not even _emergencies_, and he did the most reasonable thing that came to his mind.

He spun on his heels, still holding his daughter, and ran back inside.

* * *

Ventus ran to his room and threw himself on the bed, without even minding to take off his shoes.

He had imagined a million times that day, but he had never expected things to go like _that_.

Without even standing up, he picked up the wooden Keybade from the spot he kept it, on the chair next to the bed, and started swinging it back and forth.

It wouldn't have been too bad to have more of those corrupted light spheres that had started attacking _him too_ in that moment, at least he would have had something to lash out against. Years before, that "toy" had been so heavy that even swinging it for a few minutes would have sent twinges of pain up his arms…

Before leaving his room that morning, he had drawn a line on the growth chart near the door that Aqua had started when he had arrived there.

The wall was immaculate until 4 feet and 1 inch, where the first line had been traced in black marker along with the words "AGE TWELVE".

_«How old can he be? Nine?» Terra asked in a tone that almost bordered on whispering._

_«Xehanort could not tell me the date of his birth,» Master Eraqus said, in a normal tone. «There's no need for whispering, Terra, Ventus can hear you. And I think he will also be able to tell us his age without too many problems.»_

_«Huh?» Ventus let slip. He didn't know the answer to that question – he had no memory of that._

_The Master approached him and helped him stand up._

_«Now, Ventus, be a good boy and say AAAAAAAH.»_

_Ventus followed the orders. The Master kept his mouth open with one of his fingers and bowed slightly his head to look inside. He hinted at a grin._

_«I can see premolars. And he has already had a voice break. You know, kids, I think he must be twelve.»_

Over the first marks there were more, other moments of his life. When he had summoned Wayward Wind to his hand, when he had started casting magic, the day Terra had taught him to do a headstand and the day he had been given his friend's old toy Keyblade, the four recurrences of the date Aqua had decided to celebrate his birthday, the night he had woken up after strange dreams and he had remembered he had had a cat during his childhood.

That morning he had written "Terra and Aqua's exam" on the highest mark, but now the words had been erased by a huge black scribble.

He asked himself when would Aqua be coming to knock on the door and tell him to get changed.

He asked himself what he could have answered to her, because _he did not feel like changing_. It just wasn't fair.

He didn't think there was anything to celebrate, not when Terra had failed his exam and had left the hall to sit in the gardens.

He stayed on his bed, staring at the ceiling, for a little more, until the castle bells made him jump to his feet. He doubted Aqua or any other occupant of the castle would have given him the motivation to move, but if the bells were ringing, something important had to have happened – maybe even an emergency – and whoever heard the ring was summoned to the hall.

Ventus had never heard a true alert, only a few drills, and he highly doubted that this was another.

He was almost in the hallways when he heard a voice behind him.

«Better hurry, Ventus, or you'll never see Terra again.»

Ventus spun on the spot. There was someone leaning against his desk. A human figure, entirely covered by strange garments, probably black leather, clinging to their body like a second skin. Their face – no, _his face_, he sounded and looked masculine – was hidden by a black mask and not a single inch of his skin was visible.

«What? Get real, I can see Terra anytime I want!» Ventus immediately replied, approaching the stranger. He couldn't be an adult – he was about as tall as he was, and _he_ was short for his age.

Did he have something to do with the alert? He had never seen the guy before.

«Like right now? He's leaving you behind.» The shady guy replied. Even his voice was the immature one of a growing youth. «And by the time you catch up, he'll be a different person.»

Even without him speaking, the mere presence of the boy in black made Ventus uncomfortable. But his words were even _worse_. Ventus felt an icy fist hitting his abdomen and freezing over his intestines for every sentence that the intruder spoke.

«Look, whoever you are, you don't know the first thing about Terra!» Ventus tried to put together his best menacing tone and reply. «Me and him will _always_ be a team… are you trying to pick up a fight or what?»

He raised his guard, heedless that what he was holding was a mere toy. Maybe that intruder boy didn't even know it was.

Then again, that toy _was heavy_. Maybe not enough to seriously wound someone – and that was the reason it had been built – but if he had struck some critical spots, he would have at least left some lumps or bruises.

«Oh, _grow up_.» The intruder walked away from his desk and strolled through the room. «Is that what you call friendship?» He turned to Ventus again, staring at him with his creepy eyeless gaze. «You'll never know the truth unless you go out and look for it yourself. Come on, what could you possibly know when you're stuck here, looking at nothing but what's in your tiny world?»

A shadow rose on the wall in front of the intruder, and the boy walked right through it… and vanished inside it.

_Just where had he gone_?

* * *

_#Terra's Notes – December 1 – Five days since Ventus#_

_#Before leaving him here, Master Xehanort told us nothing about him. We don't even know how old he is, or at least we didn't until Master Eraqus measured his stature and examined his voice and his teeth, before finally stating he has to be about twelve years old.#_

_#He doesn't look like he's twelve, not at all. I mean, I may be sixteen and tall for my age, but I was thinking he was nine… even less for how he acts. He looks like a blank slate. He already is a perfect stranger right now, and it's even harder to get to know him considering he isn't talking to us.#_

_#Master Eraqus suggested me to take notes of all I see Ventus doing, and to try to understand the person he is by mere observation.#_

_#It's not easy. Not with a child who keeps staring at the wall, hardly speaks, and flinches if he gets touched.#_

_#Day Six.#_

_#Ventus doesn't have spare clothes, so I left him an old PJs I've outgrown. The top reaches his knees and I had to roll him up the trousers, but he ALMOST __started laughing when he saw the dinosaur and the sentence printed on the front.#_

_#I can't even imagine what caused the scar he has just on the left of his sternum, but it had to really hurt, even if it doesn't look very deep. It's not his only scar, though. I've spotted claw marks, old grazes on elbows and knees that makes me think he fell down a lot of times. I'm really wondering what has happened for him to end up like that.#_

_#Yesterday night we were woken up by his night terrors.#_

_#Week Two#_

_#He's afraid of scissors. Seriously?#_

_#We have to do something for his hair, they're getting messy, especially on the front, and if he doesn't let me trim them, they'll cover his eyes eventually. Aqua tried to cut his hair.#_

_#Ventus hid under the bed.#_

_#Day Fifteen.#_

_\Seriously, Terra?_

_Waste less time trying to take notes and let's try to help Ven. THANKS._

_Aqua\_

_#Ventus has started blowing his hair away from his face. I excused myself, went to the bathroom, came back to the hall with my hands covered in hair gel and ran both hands through his hair.#_

_#Little guy complained, but at least now he can see… and he let me touch him, as soon as he realized I was helping him.#_

_#Day Twenty.#_

_#Aqua started calling him Ven. VEN LIKES IT.#_

_#A Month.#_

_#We have celebrated the new year with a playful tournament on the summit. Wooden weapons, obviously.#_

_#Ventus tried his best, but… well, he's a kid and he moves like a kid.#_

_#He needs to build up some strength in his arms. I left him my old training sword. He can hardly lift it up… but he needs it more than I do.#_

_#I don't know if I really did the right thing.#_

_\You DID.\_

_#A month and a half.#_

_#Just how much peanut butter does Ventus eat? I think he could LIVE off toast with peanut butter and jelly.#_

_#If you're reading this, Aqua, stop indulging his whims, the Master could blame us both!#_

_\Oh LOOK WHO'S WRITING.\_

_\A month and a half.\_

_\Who would have guessed Ven would be so chatty?\_

_\I can't stay in the same room with him without him deciding to talk about something.\_

_\It's a huge improvement compared to even two weeks ago.\_

_\He has started asking me for advice about magic. He had already tried it with Terra, but I don't think it ended well, considering the way Ven clung to my arm after I showed him Fire.\_

_#Excuse me. __Are you two teaming up against me?_

_Terra#_

_#Three months#_

_#Just WHO told Ven it is socially acceptable to tackle people without any kind of warning?#_

_\You when you LAUGHED at him._

_Aqua\_

_\Three months and a half\_

_\Ven still has night terrors. Sometimes he wakes us up. Last night I crossed the hallway to ask him if he needed something, and Terra had the same idea.\_

_#And we all ended up sleeping in the same bed.#_

_#OUCH, my back._

_Terra#_

_*One year and five months*_

_*(Ha, busted!)*_

_*There's something wrong with those two. __Terra's pale like a coward in a crypt, and this morning he lost his grip on his glass and made a glass and juice mess on the floor. As for Aqua… where do I start? I've lost the count of the mornings I see her running to the bathroom after breakfast.*_

_*There's something they're not telling me. Something they WON'T tell me.*_

_*Guys, if there's something wrong… last minute news. I'm fourteen (thirteen and a half, but still…) and I'm your best friend. Will you please TALK TO ME?*_

_*- Ven*_


	3. Of Time and People

Chapter 3

Of Time and People

«I'm home!» Lea entered his house, closed the door, and threw himself on the creaky living room couch.

It had been definitely a _chaotic _day in town, and the boy was ready to bet his frisbees, if the pain in his rear end was a signal of something, before tomorrow his butt would have turned blue.

«Lea, Lea, there's knights in town!» Kairi ran from her room and jumped on the couch next to him.

«_Knights_? Kai, are you serious?» Lea didn't even need to pretend to be interested.

Ever since Cloud had scored a home run on Braig's head, strange things were happening. In the darkest alleys of the city, _monsters_ had appeared, and the city guards had their hands full with keeping people safe. That very day, Isa had started considering carrying his father's spade around to use it as a makeshift weapon, at least to repel attackers.

Was Zack back home? No, it couldn't be. He was supposed to stay away for the remainder of summer.

«Have you seen Genesis? Angeal?» Lea tried to ask his little sister for details on what had happened.

«No, it was a _girl_ knight.» Kairi's face contorted in trying to memorize her. «A pretty lady with blue hair and a big sword. Oh and there was another. Short and stumpy with _the biggest ears ever_!» She made two circle-like gestures with her hands on the top of her head. «They destroyed the monsters at the castle. Then Grandma came and took me home.»

«Where's Grandma now? Still at work?» Lea asked her as Kairi snuggled against him. The child nodded.

«Mrs. Fair was here until some time ago. She wouldn't go away, but I told her you'd be back soon.»

Lea bit his lip to repress his disappointment. _He was in trouble_. He had nothing against Zack's mother keeping an eye on Kairi more often than not – Grandma still worked as a librarian at the castle, and she was their guardian ever since Lea had been in eighth grade. Help was always a blessing…

… but Mrs. Fair would have told Grandma that Kairi had stayed home alone.

«Why are you late?» Kairi asked him, almost reading his thoughts.

Sometimes Lea really felt for his sister. After the absurd accident that had taken away their parents when she had been one year old, Kairi hardly had any memories of them, and had grown up and matured faster than her age of almost five. It wasn't fair she knew the real meaning of "being late" for stuff less trivial than preschool.

«I've met a knight too.» Lea decided to tell his own story with all the imagination he could stick in, even if something in the bottom of his heart kept telling him that probably that tale had some truth within. «A boy just like me.»

«He saved you from the monsters, didn't he?» Kairi sat up.

«Noooo way, I saved him!» Lea booped his sister on her nose. «He was mercilessly assaulted… by sadness!»

Kairi gave him a puzzled look, but Lea didn't stop telling his story.

«Down in the dumps, alone with his sword. Even heroes need a helping hand sometimes.»

«What did you do then, Lea?» Kairi pouted and asked him in an inquisitional voice.

«A kid's gotta do what a kid's gotta do!» Lea gave his sister a smile. «I became his friend.»

* * *

_Ven's Memoirs – Page 1_

_*I've read somewhere that even the smallest person can change the course of the future.*_

_*No one ever told me whether it's for the better, or for the worse.*_

_*I've learned from Master Eraqus that the world surrounding us is the consequence of our own actions. Maybe it was one of the first things he ever explained as soon as I was awake enough to understand.*_

«This is your room, Ventus. It's your responsibility from now on.» The Master made Ventus sit on the bed and gestured at the room surrounding them.

It was bare like only a place that had not been used in years could have been. The walls were empty, the desk and the shelves were coated in dust, and the only thing that could have hinted someone lived in there was the unmade bed in which Ventus had woken up a few hours before.

«This castle has its ways to stay clean, but you will have to make sure your bed is tidy and your stuff isn't all over the place. You'll find clean sheets in the laundry, where you'll have to take your clothes when they get dirty. I'm not telling this all is going to be easy for you, but I want you to get used to this responsibility, so don't be ashamed of asking for help if you need it.» The Master grinned. «Taking care of the worlds always begins from ourselves and our own spaces.»

Ventus forced himself to look up.

«What does it mean?» he asked his new mentor.

«Well, Ventus, you're the new kid here. It means your new classmates and I have to get used to you, just like you have to get used to us.» The Master sat on his bed next to him. «The way Terra and Aqua will behave with you depends on the way you behave with them, and so on. And it will be like this with every person you'll meet in your life.»

Ventus said nothing, and restricted himself to looking at the Master in a questioning way. It wasn't exactly clear.

«Everything in the worlds around us is the consequence of everyone's actions.» The Master put a hand on his shoulder. For a moment, Ventus feared he was being grabbed, or hit, or anything else, but it didn't happen. «People behave in a certain way for a certain reason, that can be another person's behavior, something that just happened, and that something has its own cause as well. Even the most insignificant person, even a crying baby, may drastically change what might happen in the immediate and remote future.»

«What does it mean then?» Ventus found the courage to ask.

«It means that, as much as it's possible, as a Keyblade wielder, I'm asking you to be a cause for _order_ and not for mayhem.» The Master stood up and smiled again at him. «Welcome to the family, Ventus. This was lesson number one.»

_*It isn't easy to understand whether what you're doing in that moment is order or mayhem. I thought that following Terra to prevent him from leaving was a way to prevent mayhem from happening – to save my brother in arms… to save the order that our friendship was.*_

_*I would have never imagined that Vanitas's speech had a purpose – to keep me in my room until it was too late to prevent Terra from leaving.*_

_*I had been fooled like an infant, and in a certain way, they had used my actions to cause further mayhem.*_

_*When I understood – when Xehanort used me to provoke Master Eraqus into fury and hostility, to make him raise his own blade against me and Terra – I thought they had just hit rock bottom.*_

_*Then they started using Shiro.*_

* * *

«Fine. Then I'll give you a reason to fight.» Vanitas hopped off the bridge and walked towards Ventus. «Come and find me, at the one and only place to spawn the X-blade… the Keyblade Graveyard.»

His gaze without eyes held Ventus's, then a hand covered in leather took something from under the clothes.

Ventus found himself staring at a couple inches of what looked like a tuft of white strings. Vanitas snapped his fingers, turning the strings to ash, and only by the acrid smell Ventus realized it had been _hair_.

«Then we'll see how long you play the _pacifist_ with your bub in our hands!»

He threw the ash on his face, then he opened a shadow portal to vanish.

_Shiro_. That was her hair. They had taken Shiro.

How could it be…? How did they end up in that trap, and how did Xehanort _manage_ to make sure she, an innocent, fell into it too?

«I've been an _idiot_!» Ventus cried out to the air. Vanitas's appearance in his room, what Master Xehanort had told him… what could have belied, at that point, that Terra's very Mark of Mastery exam had not been rigged from the very beginning?

_They had taken Shiro_.

Ventus would have run off to tell someone, but who? Master Eraqus would not have listened to him, not after what he had told him. Terra had sent him away, and after all he had said and the way he had run off, he did not feel brave enough to go looking for Aqua.

And had he wasted any time to go looking for anyone of them – even Master Yen Sid, who had helped him in Mickey's search – maybe it would have even been too late to save Shiro.

No.

_He had to do that_, and face the consequences.

* * *

The sky was starry on Radiant Garden that night, but in the main square of the city a battle was raging.

A young man, sheltered in an abandoned house, took a sigh and sat with his back against a wall.

_Everything is going just as planned_, even if he was not sure of how long would it take for the plan to succeed.

«… and after a long walk, Russell told us he found something. He followed the paw prints and found a huge bird. I'm telling you, it was really huge, with tiny little wings, legs as tall as a whole person, a looong neck and eyes as big as saucers!»

His listener stared at him, amazed as if the very Master of Masters was speaking before her.

«Mr. Fredricksen had tried to chase her away with his walking stick, but Kevin the bird swallowed it whole!» The boy continued. «But she didn't like the stick, so she immediately spat it out. But she liked so much Russell's chocolate…»

«Mowe!» The toddler asked him to continue his story.

When the young man had taken Shiro away from the crumbling castle, the little one had done hardly anything but wailing, but after hours passed, with the help of a bottle he had found in the kitchens before leaving, the right song, and the story of when he and his best friend had saved Kevin the momma snipe with the help of a retired balloon salesman and a boy scout, she had calmed down and she was smiling.

«And there were a flying ship, and so many talking dogs, and in the end Mister Fredricksen with our help managed to save the snipe and to fly his home to Paradise Falls.»

The boy looked up to the window that opened on the square. The noise of the battle had ceased, and strangely no one seemed to have noticed the uproar.

«What do you say, sunshine? Can we say bye-bye?»

Shiro looked up in his eyes and «Uh?»ed. She didn't seem to exactly understand what was happening, but considering his age, that was to be expected.

He couldn't stay there for long. _He could not_ take her along.

That toddler's world had been destroyed in little less than a day, and there was only one way not to leave her to her fate.

* * *

«Lea! Get up!»

The boy stifled a yawn and cocooned himself even tighter in his sheets, covering his head with his pillow. It was _summer_. Why did Grandma want him to get up so bad?

«I need your help, son. I need you to come to the castle today.» Grandma repeated, her voice getting closer and closer.

«Uuuuh?» Lea opened his eyes and sat up. Grandma almost had a hand on his bedding, and in the bed near his, Kairi, already dressed up but barefoot, was jumping on the mattress. «Grandma, I told Isa and Cloud we'd meet at McDuck's…» Lea tried to complain.

«There was an emergency in the square last night. Professor Even has phoned this morning… Braig found in the square a young man and a little girl. They need someone to take care of the little one until they find her family.»

Lea rolled his eyes. Wasn't it enough he had had to learn to change girls' diapers at thirteen because Grandma worked at the library? He didn't want to do it again – and for a total stranger! Kairi had been acceptable…

«Why should _I_ do that? Do I look like Mary Poppins by any chance?» Lea made a loud snort.

«No, you do look like the person I can trust the most at the moment.» Grandma stood near the bed and sat next to him. «They found them at sunrise and there aren't many people who get into that castle. Even less are the ones who have family. Do you mind being man enough for this responsibility?»

An hour later, Lea had prepared breakfast for himself and his sister, had dressed up and combed his hair the best he could, and was at the castle gates with Grandma and Kairi, with half his face covered by his keffiyeh and looking down, hoping Lord Ansem's guards not to recognize him and make him cut a sorry figure right in front of his family.

«This is no place for kids, ma'am.»

_Last famous words_. Dilan, the dark-haired guard, approached Lea with a spear and pointed it on his cloth-covered nose.

«I _did _tell I would be bringing my grandchildren here, Dilan.» Grandma stood between Lea and the guard. «Lea is here to take care of the little girl you found in the square, and I can't leave Kairi home alone.»

«Family of yours, huh?» Dilan lowered Lea's keffiyeh with a single motion of his hand. «Your _trustworthy_ grandson here tried to trespass several time with a buddy of his. Forgive me if I'm cautious.»

Grandma looked daggers at Lea, but then she turned her glare once more on Dilan.

«Whatever his reasons might have been, now he's _with me_ and you'll have to respond to Even if you throw him out _now_.»

For a moment, silence filled the gardens. Kairi, still holding onto Lea's hand, gently squeezed his fingers in a gesture that had always meant understanding between the siblings. The boy decided it was time to play along and show the guards the reason he was there, he bent to Kairi's level and picked her up.

«Fine.» It was Aeleus who intervene. «We _will_ talk to Even. The boy's going to wait in the hallways.»

They opened the door, leading Lea, Kairi and Grandma inside.

«Did it go well?» Kairi whispered in Lea's ear. Lea shrugged.

The guards led them in a corridor without windows, until they got to a red door where they stopped them. Lea had already been in that zone of the castle when Zack had taken him there, weeks before that seemed a lifetime, before he and Isa had started to get busted. The guards and Grandma entered the room, leaving Lea and Kairi alone to wait for them.

From somewhere in the castle came the distinct sound of a toddler wailing.

«The girl…» Kairi murmured.

The regular, heavy sound of the steps of an adult man filled the hallway, louder and louder, closer and closer, and from behind a corner a familiar face appeared.

«Lea? What are you doing in here?»

It was neither a castle guard nor a scientist who had recognized him – it was Angeal of the city watch, Zack's mentor.

«Good morning, sir.» Lea straightened himself the best he could while still holding his sister and hinted at a salute.

Angeal approached them with a worried look.

«You should be at home, with what happened yesterday night…»

«We are here _because_ something happened yesterday night.» Lea put Kairi down and looked in Angeal's eyes. «Our grandmother, my sister's and mine, who's the librarian here, says a man and a toddler have been found in the square. Braig found them. I'm here because… _I can change diapers_.»

«Braig?» Angeal rolled his eyes. «Why does that man always find trouble wherever he sticks his nose?»

«Did he really lose an eye?» Kairi indiscreetly intervened.

«_Kairi!_» Lea tried to stop her.

«How can someone _lose an eye_?» The preschooler asked again. «Did it fall from his face?»

Angeal covered his mouth with a hand and emitted a snort.

Lea would have wanted the floor to swallow him.

«Believe me, Kairi, it's for the best we don't tell you.» It was Lea's turn to roll his eyes.

The door was opened, and the guards came out with Grandma and Even.

«… what I'm asking myself is _why_ did you take the time to make me waste _mine_!» Even was yelling at the guards. «We're _given_ a babysitter for the squirt and you try to throw him out?»

Some minutes later, Angeal was escorting Lea to the castle's guesthouse and knocked on one of the doors.

A boy – about eleven, judging by his stature – with an oversized labcoat and a way too serious face opened the door. Half of his face was covered by a thick steel-blue fringe.

«Ienzo, I have the baby-sitter.» Angeal told the boy. The kid nodded and ran away from the room, without saying a word.

Lea looked around – it definitely looked like a guest room. The little girl everyone was talking about was sitting on a bed moved against a wall, with pillows put under the fitted sheets to prevent her from falling, and was wailing her lungs out. She was wearing a grey kitten onesie that was visibly grimy, tuft of her whitish hair were missing, as if someone had cut them off without caring for how she would have looked without, and her face was streaked by tears.

Lea bit his lip – that wouldn't have been easy. He grinned as wide as he could, gestured Kairi to stand back for a moment, and sat on the floor with his back against the wall.

«Hello there, 'shroom. Nice to meet ya,» he started out speaking slowly. «I am Lea. Got it memorized?»

He reached out for her. She reminded him of Kairi a lot – in the accident days. Even that girl had her same dismayed look, maybe even more for the messy hair and dirty garment. And she even looked the same age Kairi had been when it had happened – a year and a half.

The little one stopped crying and stared in his eyes.

«_Hel-loo._» Lea spoke again. Whatever he was going to do, the kid had to be calmed down one way or another.

«I want Dada…» the toddler started whining.

Lea covered his face with a hand. _Now, that's a good start_.

* * *

«Zack, aren't you?»

A figure dressed in black turned around a corner in Thebes's streets and stopped in front of the boy. Zack had never seen him _in person_, but he knew the man. Captain Sephiroth, the head of the Radiant Garden city guard. _What was he doing there_?

«Sir?» Zack stood at attention, then quickly looked back.

Hercules and Phil were still busy in the square, Phil yelling and Hercules doing push-ups.

«You've been urgently summoned home.»

Zack would have asked if something had happened, whether his family was okay, but Sephiroth hastily grabbed his arm and everything around them faded to black,

The world came back into focus and Zack found himself in the Radiant Garden main square – the same place in which Cloud had scored a home run on Braig's head.

He immediately noticed something was wrong.

There were grooves in the stone pavement, slabs broken, blackened by fire, and pieces of stone scattered everywhere. A tree had been uprooted, some had burns, and another had been cut down – an almost clean cut.

Despite being in the open air, in the center of the square there was a distinct odor, stagnant and stale, that Zack almost seemed to recognize.

It immediately brought Hades up to his mind.

He turned towards Sephiroth to ask him what had just happened, but the Captain wasn't there.

Zack was alone.

_You've been urgently summoned home_.

Something had had to happen, but what? Zack was tempted to go and talk to his parents – assuming something hadn't happened to _them_ – or to run to the castle and ask Angeal, when two voices cut through the silence and two boys ran up to him.

«Zack! Zack, it's you, right?»

Cloud was the first to reach him. Taciturn Isa was on his heels.

Neither of the two was empty-handed: Cloud was clutching his baseball bat in his hand and Isa had on his shoulder a heavy-looking gardening spade that luckily was only covered in dirt.

«What happened?» Zack asked them. «Where's Lea?»

The two stayed silent for a moment while Zack looked at them both, then Cloud spoke first.

«We don't know,» he said. «He wasn't where we had scheduled to meet, and we tried to find him at his place but no one's home. Not even his grandma or sister.»

«And no signs of violence.» Isa put the spade down and leaned on it. «There's been a battle last night in the square. We don't exactly know what happened but people say people got hurt, and they were taken to Lord Ansem's castle.»

«We _wanted_ to go and look for Lea…»

«But that's out of the question, Cloud, especially for you if you want to work in the city watch.» Isa reprimanded the younger boy.

«But you and Lea do…»

Zack didn't let him continue.

«I can check on the castle, guys, this argument has no point,» he intervened. «Anything that could have happened, if the city guards have been summoned, can't be something that can be faced with a bat and a spade.»

He did not want to belittle the two boys' efforts, but he didn't want to put them in danger – not now Lea was nowhere to be found.

Cloud gave him a puppy-eyed look for a moment, as if he wanted to somehow convince him without speaking. Zack mentally cursed himself for promising Aerith to help him – the little mule was more than intentioned to be a hero, but he had not understood there was little he could do at his age to make a difference.

Just a moment. _Aerith_.

«But I do need you two to do me a favor. Get back into the borough and go to Aerith's. Please, make sure she's okay, tell her I'm back and I'm safe and in a single piece.»

«Can do. I know where she lives.» Cloud nodded. «Follow me, Isa.»

He almost took the older boy by the sleeve and sprinted off towards the streets that led to the residential district.

Zack stayed for a moment in the square, trying to find out what had happened by looking at the scene.

He didn't want to tell Isa and Cloud, but he _had already seen_ such a devastation, and he didn't like what he saw.

He had seen how Ventus had literally smashed some stones in the city of Thebes to blow monsters away, and Ventus. Was. A KID. Or at least, he didn't have the physical build of a destroyer.

Zack had also seen the Coliseum and how it had been reduced after Terra and Aqua had won two tournaments on Olympus, and those two, who fought like Ventus but were definitely older and more skilled, had sent sand from the foundations of the stadium up to the bloody nosebleeds!

… or something like that.

Whatever had happened, it had had to be something that involved someone as tough as them… and with their same weapons.

His look stopped on a patch of the square where the stones had been blown away from their placement. The mortar underneath them had crumbled to dust, and there were visible some familiar spiral patterns, traced by what looked like the tip of a shoe.

_A young woman, surrounded by a cerulean aura, pirouetting on the arena almost like it was an ice rink, keeping her blade up high and hurling a graceful and deadly magical attack…_

Aqua. _Aqua had been there_.

Zack recognized those footprints, recognized the shoes that had left them.

«Daaaaamn!» he burst out, breaking into a run towards the castle gates. He wasn't worried only about Lea, not anymore – what had happened in the square?

He raced across the garden, almost running into little Ienzo who was examining burns in the lawn, doubtlessly left by some monster – Zack knew them so well he recognized the marks they left –, ran up the staircase skipping every other step, and almost didn't stop in front of Dilan and Aeleus.

«Zack Fair of the city watch!» He panted. «I've been summoned home by Captain Sephiroth!»

The two recognized him almost immediately and had no trouble with letting him inside, and Zack sprinted in the hallways. He didn't know what held him back from screaming Aqua's name… then he hit something and found a little girl, who had just fallen on her backside, in front of him.

_What was Kairi doing there?_

«Maaan… Kairi, I'm so sorry… I really am… didn't see you!» Zack picked her up and looked up and down in the hallway, ensuring no one had seen his momentous gaffe.

«It's nothing,» the girl replied. Her lip was shaking a little, but she was visibly trying to stay stoic. Zack put her back down.

«What are you doing here?» He crouched to look in her eyes. «Not a place for kids.»

«The two big guys out there said it, too, but then they let me and Lea in anyway.» Kairi rocked back and forth on her feet.

«Is Lea here too?» Zack immediately asked.

Kairi nodded. «They've found a little girl in the square, and they needed someone who could brother.»

From Zack's throat came a noise that sounded like an embarrassing hybrid between a laugh and a sigh of relief. Of all places in which Lea could have ended up… there he was, babysitting at Ansem's castle.

«What happened yesterday night, Kairi?»

«I don't know.» Kairi span a little on the spot, her hands clasped behind her back. Then she walked towards one of the doors and pushed it, revealing Lea trying to calm down a child about one year old, sitting in a makeshift crib with a visible pout on her face.

«Zack! Aren't you a sight for sore eyes!» Lea was visibly pleased by his presence. «Shroom here keeps crying for her parents. She hardly lets herself get touched!»

«And Kairi told me _you could brother_…» Zack approached him with a smirk, then he turned serious. «Lea, do you happen to know what happened?»

The boy shrugged.

«Wish I knew too. I talked to Angeal as soon as I got here. Now I think about it, I'm not surprised you got here just a couple of hours later… this story stinks like a skunk. Braig found the girl and a man in the center of the square. Angeal came back here minutes ago, and looks like the man's name is Xehanort, but he couldn't tell me anything about Shroom, apart from the fact he was told she was clutching what looked like armor pieces… he didn't see them, by the way.»

«I checked the square.» Zack leaned against a wall. «You said the man was called Xehanort, right? I knew the other fighter's name, probably. And maybe I know a way to prove I'm right.»

_«For how you're talking about Terra…» Aqua concealed a laugh with a hand. «I think only Ventus and Shiro would talk about him like that.»_

_Zack gave her a wide grin and kept doing squats._

_«I do know Ventus. Now who's Shiro?»_

_Aqua pulled a picture from a pocket concealed in her sashes. Zack recognized Ventus, in a green t-shirt and a pair of swim trunks, and a little girl, probably one year old, floating in a rubber ring in what looked like a lake._

_Ventus was holding her from behind, to prevent her from floating away with the current._

_«Have you met Ven? Do you really know this boy?»_

_Zack nodded, then pointed at the child._

_«I suppose this is Shiro, then.»_

«I suppose you're Shiro, then.»

She was identical to the infant in the picture, apart from several locks of hair that seemed to have been cut without caring at all.

«_Shiro_?» Lea pulled a face. «She _was_ trying to tell me something, but she just can't roll her Rs!»

The toddler pointed at herself.

«_Fhe-wo_!» she squeaked in an exasperated tone.

«All right, all right!» Lea raised his arms in surrender. «_Got it memorized_, Shroom.»

* * *

Lately, the sky above the islands was often dotted by shooting stars, and Sora and Riku did their best not to miss a single one.

Sometimes Sora tried to push Riku aside, in the attempt to see the stars first so he could make a wish. But after two consecutive nights of shiny tails, Riku almost seemed to have lost enthuxiasm.

«Some old men in town say it's a bad sign,» he said, looking at the sky. «They say that it's the warning…»

«… of a forthcoming disaster or a war.» Sora mumbled without noticing, turning serious without really wanting to.

He took both hands to his mouth. _What had just happened?_

It wasn't something he had wanted to say!

«Since when you know what fort-coming disgrace means?» Riku raised an eyebrow and glared at him.

«I don't!» Sora felt his cheeks growing warm. He folded his arms behind his head in a gesture that almost seemed instinctive to him. «Why, do you know?»

«It means something's coming here. Something ugly.» The older boy made a few steps forward and picked up some gravel. «Ugly like the sky falling on us!»

When his left fist was full of little stones, Riku put his right hand on the wooden sword he always carried on his belt.

«One day I'll be strong like the heroes.» He gave Sora a smile, showing the pebbles in his hand. «So when stars fall from the sky I'll send them right back where they come from!»

He tossed up the gravel with his hand, then he started beating them back with the sword, one after another, far away from them. One was too far… he wouldn't have reached it in time… Sora drew his own toy sword and dealt the last hit, making even the last pebble bounce far away.

«Remember what the lady said?» Sora stopped next to Riku. «I gotta stay close to you or you're toast!»

Riku stayed still and silent as he looked in Sora's eyes.

Sora put the sword back on his belt and gave him his warmest smile.

«One day they'll tell new stories in town.» He put a hand on his shoulder. «They'll tell about the great powerful heroes who put back the stars up in the sky. Together because they're the best of friends. And they'll say "_once upon a time there was a hero, I mean there were two heroes, and their names were Riku and Sora_" and we'll be there to listen and all the people will look at us.»

With every word Sora spoke, Riku's face got redder and redder.

«But I don't wanna end up in a story…» he said, hunching his shoulders. «I… just wanna put the stars back on…»

«Well that's what heroes do.» Sora seized Riku's shoulder with the arm with which he was already touching him and squeezed him hard.

Riku caught him with his own arm from under Sora's armpits, and lifted him up in the air for a moment.

«_Come on_, Sora, you're such a featherweight and you think you're a hero!» Riku chuckled, then he let him go and lifted him up again, with both arms this time, trying to haul his younger friend up on his shoulders. Sora tried to wriggle free by struggling with all his strength, and before they could notice they both ended up lying on the ground.

«We _both_ are featherweights!» Sora, who had landed with his belly right on Riku's back, raised his head and burst into laughter.

«Feather? _Me_?» Riku shoved Sora away, sat up and raised his arms. «Then now comes the _tickle_!»


End file.
